


Remaking of a Shadow

by afterandalasia



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Healing, Lord of Shadowfell Lydia Stormborn, Love, Lydia Stormborn-centric, Minor Erlin Kindleaf/Beverly Toegold V, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Elias Stormborn/Lydia Stormborn, Post-Campaign 01 (Not Another D&D Podcast), Remaking Identity, Shadowfell (Not Another D&D Podcast), second love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26483302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: She is the Lord of Shadowfell. She is new, and remade, and remaking herself from all of the pieces of her past that were shattered apart and then reforged into something stronger.She is broken sherds of pottery giving strength to new clay. She is the dead beneath the ground that give life to new trees. She is reborn from herself, and will see this realm reborn around her.She is Lydia Stormborn, and in her death she finally learns to live.
Relationships: Bubbles | Erdan's Cat & Erdan (Not Another D&D Podcast), Erdan/Lydia Stormborn, Lydia Stormborn & Hardwon Surefoot
Comments: 9
Kudos: 28





	Remaking of a Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> I mean, look, at least I'm writing fic for something that is an actual canon instead of my own D&D characters, I guess? *laughs* I binged the podcast and freaking loved it, and it has inspired me to both write fic and bring my fucking A game to my own sessions.
> 
> I loved Erdan from as early as "Would you like to borrow my cat?" and then the more we saw of him, the more I adored him. Lydia, well, she was an incredible character from the beginning, but the delivery of "No. _I'm_ the Lord of Shadowfell." gives me shivers every time I hear it. Aaaaand I'm in inveterate multishipper and somehow an idle "I wonder what if after..." turned into me shipping it.
> 
> I thought this was going to be a ficlet. *looks into the camera like they're on The Office* Yeah, you can see how well that went. I also meant for it to be soft M, it decided it wanted to be hard M, this things happen to the best of us. Oh, and I have no idea what the rules on revenants are in Murph's world, or even what type of being (revenant, human, other) Lydia is post-Shadowfell Saga. Just roll with it, pretty please?

“The lines of death are wavering,” Lydia says, as they stand on the walls of the keep and look out over the land below. Sometimes, just sometimes, the red sun makes it feel like an eternal sunset, and not a blood-drenched sea. “At least at the moment… they are not what they should be. When my son and his friends have set things to right…”

Erdan simply nods at her words. Perhaps a lifetime as a necromancer helps him to see a little more flexibility in the direction of life and death. “This place has already changed a lot from how I remember it. You are doing well, Lord Stormborn.”

She glances round; only a couple of her knights stand at each end of the long parapet on which they stand. “Please… when it is just us, speak to me.” She will take the sword, take this land and remake it, but she is remembering how to be a _person_ again and it thrills her. “To Lydia.”

She gathers lost souls, handful by handful, then waves on waves as the Chosen wreak their havoc upon the Material Plane. It feels good to scream her fury in battle against those monsters who would seek to subjugate those around.

Erdan looks troubled, when he hears her use the word _monsters_. At least until she explains that it is not based on what they are, but what they seek to do.

“I have met elven monsters,” she says. “Human monsters. And I have met revenants and vampires who are not monsters at all.”

She was and is a revenant herself, after all. But she has been a monster, and now has left it.

Slowly, he nods. “My apologies. I… have been told many times that necromancy is a monster of a practice.”

Whenever she has time, she is still teasing the souls from the sword she inherited. The ones that remain are deeper, more fractured, and it takes more time to peel back their madness and find out what it was that even trapped them in the first place. It exhausts her, and she wonders whether that is a little akin to how necromancy feels.

“It is strange how much running a land of the undead is like running a city,” says Erdan, as he watches her trying to introduce the concept of paperwork to the land. It will be nice to have some record, one day, that she can check back and know when things were done, and why.

He has regaled her with a few tales of arguments he needed to quell, and the reminder is enough to pull her out of her frown. “Well, we have had a few issues with unwanted guests making themselves at home in the moat. But crick elves generally aren’t so poisonous as giant serpents.”

“No, but they do argue back more.”

Judging from the look on Captain Toegold’s face, the snake had been using some choice language of its own, but Lydia supposes at least the rest of them were not treated to it. “Then I will be grateful for small mercies.”

Erdan’s powers flourish in Shadowfell. He can sense the presence of different creatures with ease, once he is used to the overwhelming knowledge of having the undead all around him. He tears down unnatural plants that suffocate the ground or protect dangers, but to his surprise new healthy ones grow in their place and bloom beneath his touch.

“I suppose it makes sense,” he admits to Lydia, as they sit one evening by a fire that does its best to warm them. “There is a sort of deathliness that pervades this whole land.”

She had wondered whether it was just her, who felt as if there was some death in everything. She had never been certain who it might be best to ask.

As if seeing Erdan’s troubled expression, Bubbles comes and jumps up into his lap with a chirp. Unlike the last time, the cat is not a skeleton, but a long-haired black beast with amber eyes and one white whisker amid all the black ones. She walks around like he owns the place, but from what Lydia remembers that is quite typical of cats, and she quickly gave up on trying to stop her from sitting on the table in the war room.

Erdan scratches the cat behind the ears, distractedly, and Bubbles begins to purr. Lydia had never heard the sound before Bubbles joined the castle’s residents, and it instantly endeared her.

“Death has a power,” says Lydia. A power more than just magical, truth be told, in the way that it changes those around. It has a greater area of effect than any spell she had ever learned to cast in her paladin days. “I am glad that people like you study it.”

“Like me?” he tears his eyes from the fire.

“Good people,” she says simply. It looks like he colours slightly, though it is difficult to ever be sure in Shadowfell’s sallow gloom. “I would rather see more like you, who find the good in that power. It is a pity that there are those who misuse it. But people fear death.”

She knows why, now. She fears it still, the screaming cold, the explosions of pain along every inch of her body. But she knows that her fear only fed into her anger, only drove her deeper into madness.

Erdan goes to reply, but Bubbles stretches up and headbutts him in the cheek. Lydia cannot help but laugh, and after a moment’s affront with the cat Erdan gives in and laughs as well.

“Perhaps it would be easier for some if they knew something like Bubbles was waiting on the other side,” Lydia says.

“Or if they knew somewhere like this was,” Erdan replies. His eyes are still locked on Bubbles, and it seems to take him a moment to notice the way that Lydia falls silent to watch him. For a moment he is neither archwizard nor advisor, just another rescued soul who at least knew a little about what to expect on the other side. Finally, though, he glances up and the indulgent smile drops away. “I mean – it’s not so fearful. As it once was.”

She remembers screaming, in her chains. “I know.”

The Knights of Penance are ecstatic when they hear that the Dusk Mother has been elevated to the Greater Gods, and their delight warms Lydia’s soul. Erdan watches with some bemusement, and Lydia stands beside him to look over the celebrations and explain who the Dusk Mother is. Light and darkness, life and death. The shadowy veil of Between.

His expression grows serious, then softens to something almost wistful. “Perhaps if I had heard of her when I was younger,” he says, “I would have been in the habit of praying to her, as well.”

Out-of-tune songs drift up from the courtyard. Lydia smiles. “If there is anything this land has taught me,” she says, “it is not only the young have chances with the new.”

Her son returns a hero, and she doesn’t care. Lydia stands on tiptoes and throws her arms around Elias’s shoulders and simply _holds_ him, tight enough that she hopes it might perhaps mask her trembling. She has had her son so little time, and she knew his strength, his power, but still to see him alive and well is a terrible weight off her unbeating heart.

She holds back her tears until she realises that he is crying as well, and remembers with an edge of desperate laughter how she had told him it was okay to cry. Everyone in the room of them knows her, knows her as Lydia and not just as Lord Stormborn, and she lets her own tears fall into his shoulder in return and embraces him until her fingers start to ache.

Beverly, bless him, has handkerchiefs for them both, with embroidered initials and the scent of flowers on them. Elias blows his nose in the same loud way that his father did, and Lydia cannot even catch her breath to explain to them why she is laughing.

By the time that she gathers herself, Erdan is already trying to apologise, to all of them it seems but in particular to another high elf with more than a little of Moonshine in his features and the robes of a wizard. He tells Erdan fondly to shut up and then hugs him, which seems to surprise the necromancer most of all.

“Lucanus!”

Erdan is released, and Lucanus gives a sheepish smile. “I’ve been sending more time with Moonshine. She learned Counterspell, Erdan! An arcane spell!”

Lydia recognises the look in Erdan’s eyes; she has seen it in so many, down here. Expecting anger, and unsure what to do when they do not find it.

She makes sure to catch his eye, and nods to him. Accept what her son and his group of wonderful, strange friends are offering, as they always offer. Hope.

A small petty part of her does not want to let Elias go, for all that she knows and believes that it is best for him. Once again, he promises to scry every day, and they both know he will not remember that regularly but that he will at least try. He tells her about some dwarf girl named Shivil and looks up with wary questions in his eyes, and she knows she can never put into words the complexity of her love for his father. A man who made her feel alive and for whose love she ended up dead. A man she could never want to change, but whose story she still wishes ended differently.

“Love as you love,” she says. “Don’t deny something that is there, but don’t hold to things that have gone.”

She tries not to make it sound too much like she is talking about his father, but she has only known one love, one man, one touch.

“You’re still young;” and he looks it, as she strokes his cheek. “Let yourself feel. Let yourself change. I’m not saying to only stay while it’s easy, but… only stay where you want to stay.”

She doesn’t notice the loneliness until after that first visit. It isn’t that she wants for company, even for friends; she has Red to tease her like in the old days, and a new and growing circle of advisors and…

And sometimes, she does not know what to call them. Captain Toegold. Erdan. The Knights of Penance. Representatives of human towns, creeping cautiously out of the fog and shadows of the realm, unsure if they will find another monster waiting on the throne. Not quite friends, not quite colleagues, taking nebulous places around her own nebulous existence.

It is not even missing Elias. _Her_ Elias, her husband – perhaps her son is right in calling himself Hardwon, in making his own name. But he has been Elias as well for so long now, and she is so proud of what he has become. Is still becoming. She misses Elias, the man she knew and loved.

But she misses… something else, as well. A position, more than a person, and at first she feels pangs of guilt. It takes evenings mulling over her thoughts to realise that it is the tendrils of what she once was coming through, guilt over _wanting_ that was drummed into her back in her days among the Chosen. She had thought that she had left those days behind her when she took the throne of Shadowfell and took back control, but wanting tangible things and wanting intangible ones is… different, apparently, to her Chosen-scarred heart.

It is easier, once she puts words to it. She knows better than to search out someone to fill the space, and contents herself with the rewarding work of making Shadowfell habitable land. Clawing out the role of leader, freeing herself as she willingly takes on their chains. Still finding herself, she supposes, after so long following missions and quests and fooling herself that all of life is one task. Life – or undeath, now – is chaotic and messy, and will never be perfect, but she can try to improve one small thing at a time. The world does not need to be all-or-nothing.

One day she breathes in the damp air on the battlements, and there is no longer the sickly edge of rot. She smiles.

On another visit, Elias and his friends bring another young halfling, a boy as young as Beverly but who has the same war-weariness behind his eyes. The two boys hardly seem to untwine their hands, even when the newcomer introduces himself as Erlin and more shyly adds that he added his cleric abilities to the final fight against Thiala.

Soon after, she starts receiving messages through Sending from him, and is finally able to respond. She reaches out to the Clerics of the Dusk Mother to see if any of them are able to reply, and is heartened when they reply yes. The occasional message gets lost, but they quickly develop codes that can shorten whole sentences into words, and while it will never make up for the past it gives one more way to speak to her son and his friends.

To deal with a particularly difficult entrenchment of werewolves, Elias and his friends send “an expert friend”, which honestly makes little sense at all until Moonshine planeshifts in, drops off a young woman with golden eyes and taut awareness in every line of her body, then apologises for the flying visit and says she will be back in a few days.

The young woman does not even look surprised. “Name’s Luna. You must be Lord Stormborn,” she says. It is accompanied with a glance up and down Lydia’s body which is appreciative enough to be a compliment. Lydia smiles, and decides on the spot that she likes Luna’s brash honesty. “Nice armour.”

“Elias said you might be able to advise on a situation we’re having with some werewolves,” says Lydia. Niceties can wait until she is sure what to expect from Luna. “A couple of days to the west of here. You know something about them?”

Luna grins, revealing distinct fangs. “You could say that.”

She should have seen that coming. Lydia laughs, surprised, but actually relaxes somewhat. At least she can be sure that her son has come through again. “Good to know. Come on, let’s find you a room and get you settled in.”

Luna’s eyes glitter, and her look is… well. _Wolfish_ , not that Lydia would dare to say the word aloud. “Can’t say I expected to be met by the Lord herself. Let alone be shown to a room by her.”

It certainly makes a change, to be flirted with. A change from being the intimidating Lord Stormborn, a change from the pious anger of her days behind Chosen armour. Certainly a change from the years she lost to the wastes beyond life and death. Moonshine had bordered on the flirtatious with her, of course, but it had been quickly apparent that was simply her way, and even she had toned it down in front of Elias’s mortified looks.

She realises to her own embarrassment, however, that she has long since forgotten how to flirt back. It brings her thoughts up short at this new absurdity, and she has to blink it away before settling for asking Luna about how she had met with Elias and the others. She does, at least, remember that other people know him as Hardwon.

Luna turns out to be just what they need to get into the tactics, to see the landscape through the eyes of a werewolf. She even manages to go undercover and gather information from among them without being detected, and brings back intelligence on their numbers, their hideouts, the ways that they are moving through the landscape.

She also flirts openly with Lydia, reining it in a little in front of others but not as much as Lydia might have expected or, to be fair, preferred. She supposes she will consider it a learning curve. The werewolves are cut through, given their chance, their choice, to fall in line with the new system Lydia is creating or to be punished for the crimes they have committed.

Many of them choose the punishment, even knowing it is death. To some extent, she understands, though she gives them time to make their decisions and does not force it from them on the battlefield. Of those who join her, some still act as monsters, and she swings the sword herself. But others change, and find some positivity in the world again.

It does not escape her notice that Erdan does not seem to much like Luna. Oh, he is too much a gentleman to let it colour how he works with her, even when they stand on the same battle lines, but he is curt in a way that Lydia did not expect. She has an inkling as to why the first time that he looks away from one of Luna’s more flirtatious comments, but places the thought aside until, at least, this current werewolf threat is dealt with.

A message to Moonshine is all that it takes to send Luna home, with a warm handshake and a promise that she can return any time they need more help. But they have werewolves among their numbers that are native to Shadowfell now, who know the land and the people, and privately Lydia suspects that they are unlikely to need Luna again. She does say the woman is welcome to visit when Elias and his friends do, however.

In the wake of it all, the cooling down of the latest wave of fighting, she is finally able to consider Erdan’s tense looks, the irritated glances he had done his level best to restrain. She gives him a couple of days to cool down – and it is not exactly as if he is usually hot-headed, so she suspects that a fire slow to build will be slow to wane – but cannot help but miss him as she does so. It was less noticeable under the pressures of fighting, but in their wake she misses evenings spent talking to him, wandering back and forth between thoughts of leading lands and nonsensical guesses as to what creature Bubbles had deposited one half of in the middle of the floor. She misses the comfortable sound of his voice, the way she finds herself relaxing around him, the way that he looks at her and sees the person beneath the armour and behind the sword.

She touches her fingers to her lips at the thought. How easy it would, to slide a hand across to touch Erdan. How warm she feels at the thought of a kiss from him. But then… what? Does she intend to seduce him? To put the thoughts aside? Which is more foolish, or more impulsive? She almost wishes that she had another that she could ask, when for all her years she has known only one love, and that a turbulent and probably unconventional one.

 _Probably_. She is not even sure herself.

Oh, she has seen others. Red and Gunther, with their bickering ways, were the ones that they spent the most time around, but it is not as if she has been cloistered away from the world. Even now, as she rebuilds and puts into place leaders, as time creeps onwards even in this blasted land, she watches people around her falling into and out of love.

She thinks of Elias, and how he no longer talks about Shivil. A new name will appear in a while, perhaps, but she will not beg for it. He must make his own way.

What advice would she give herself? The thought shakes a breathless laugh from her, alone in the peace of the room where she does not need to sleep. But not all sleep is rest, and not all armour is worn. She would certainly tell herself not to ignore such a feeling. Acknowledge it, consider it; explore and express it if she wished. In Shadowfell of all places, sparks of life and life-longing should be nurtured.

She could still be wrong, of course. Could have misread the looks in Erdan’s eyes, the way he lingers in their conversations. But there is only one way to be sure.

It takes most of an evening to pluck up the courage, and Lydia is sure that whatever happens she will one day laugh at herself for that. Conversation with Erdan is as easy as it always is, even sitting knee-to-knee at the window with Bubbles curled up like an arcane sigil on the seat between them, tail twitching in the air.

He has finished cataloguing the latest books that have been recovered. Is looking into having some of them duplicated to be sent to Gladeholm. She has to deal with an incident in training some of the skeletons which had led to a rather unfortunate jumble of bones, and teases him by asking whether she should have called on his expertise. Once, she knows, he would have been defensive that he worked with the soul more than the body, but now he laughs. When he does so, it jostles the pince-nez on his nose, and he has to reach up and nudge them back into place again.

“Still, we are into another long haul of restructuring an area, with those werewolves dealt with,” she says, voice casual though her eyes follow him carefully. “It is almost two different jobs, really. Breaking things down and then building them again. I, ah, rather imagine that Luna will be glad not to be here still for the latter.”

 _There_ , the slight shift in Erdan’s demeanour, pleasantly repressed and hidden behind a polite smile. Nothing so strong as jealousy, she is quite sure, but some faint negative twang that ran through him.

“Well,” he says, still levelly, “different people have different skills. She was of great help in what you have achieved so far, yes?”

When he catches her eyes, she realises that _he_ is looking for something as well, searching for something in her gaze that she isn’t sure how to give. Swallowing, Lydia decides to set aside any ghost of subterfuge. “Flattering though her attention was, I was never interested, Erdan.” She lets his name soften on her tongue. It was simply… nice, to be seen as a woman again.”

“I–” Erdan licked his lips, and Lydia was acutely aware of every moment, of every movement that he makes, as if she were some enamoured youth once again. “Ever since you have asked, I have thought of you as… as Lydia.”

“And having seen Luna has only made me realise that I prefer it that way,” says Lydia. In her head, the words had seemed unambiguous, but she sees Erdan just starting to frown. “That I prefer it _your_ way,” she tries again, reaching to put one hand on his.

His hand is warm, though only slightly; more the dulling effect of Shadowfell than the actual wake of death, she suspects. But even as Erdan’s eyes widen in realisation, colour spreads across his cheeks and right into his ears, and it occurs to Lydia that she has never seen an elf blush before. The seconds stretch out terribly as she waits for some response, even if it is not words, even if it is just a movement of the hand beneath hers, as Erdan looks at her in shock and something she cannot name. Then he seems to realise that he is staring, blushes harder, and looks down so abruptly that his pince-nez fall off altogether and drop into Bubbles’ fur.

“I – oh, blast.” Erdan goes to reach for them, but then Bubbles shifts with a rumble and the pince-nez are probably lost to the depths of black fur. He huffs at the cat, then looks up at Lydia again and clears his throat before speaking on, words careful and slow. “My apologies. I had, I suppose, never dared to think that any feelings might be reciprocated–”

She knows full well that not all elves drag out their sentences so, and she can hear his meaning more than clearly enough. But while she is good enough with words, sometimes she simply prefers to _act_. Lydia leans in, Erdan tilting his face to meet her even as his words trail off, and presses a firm kiss to his lips.

Or at least, that is what she _intends_ to do. And it would be cruel to say she does not at all, but their noses bump uncomfortably together and the angle is awkward at best. Surely she had not always been this clumsy. A breath of laughter escapes her, and Lydia shifts the tilt of her lips slightly to try again; this time it feels more like a kiss, Erdan’s lips soft against hers, and she feels a thrill down her spine from it. This time as well, Erdan actually kisses back, and it still manages to feel something like relief even after what he had said, and not-quite-said.

His other hand brushes lightly over her shoulder, and she leans into his touch quite deliberately. After the first stumble of uncertainty, Erdan kisses her with a confidence that she had not anticipated, firm movements of his lips answering the hunger on hers. Because _oh_ , she can feel that hunger burgeoning, feel a draw beneath her sternum that tugs stronger as she finds the familiarity in the movement. New lips, but a familiar sense of closeness, of breath against her cheek, of how it feels to brush her tongue against someone’s lower lip. Erdan gives a faint shiver as she does so, catches his breath, and _that_ is new as well. She likes it.

She parts her lips, a near-giddiness rushing through her and trailing hot fingers down her spine, when there is an affronted _mrow_ from between them and something butts against her chest. Erdan hitches back, and Lydia is not sure what to expect as she opens her eyes. Still blushing wildly, Erdan scoops Bubbles along and to the ground, and fishes up his glasses from the seat between them. There is an impressive amount of cat hair stuck there.

Should she be the one to break the silence? Words snag in Lydia’s throat, but she pushes aside the discomfort. It is all very well offering words to others if she cannot live by them.

The hypocrisy, of everything, was the first stain she had seen on the supposed holy cloth of the Chosen.

“I have counselled my son, before, not to ignore what he may feel,” she says. It is at least something, though it still feels like she is dancing from the truth. “It would be remiss of me were I not to say that… that as much as I appreciate your friendship, I would ask for more. That you are true, and wise, and that…” her words fail her, and she chuckles at herself again. Shakes her head, gaze falling on his shoulder. “I am sorry. Perhaps I should have tried to prepare these words.”

Erdan clears his throat, and when Lydia glances up his blush is at least somewhat faded. At least, other than where the light behind his ears shows that they are more reddened than even Shadowfell’s dull sun usually makes them look. His lips are flushed as well, still inviting, and as Lydia steals a glance at them she sees his tongue run across the lower quickly, then his teeth graze against it.

“The first that I saw of you was when you seized the throne of Shadowfell. I could see you were a woman to be greatly admired,” he says. The slowness of his words seems less deliberate now, perhaps as uncertain as her own pauses. “But I… was quite caught up in the aftermath of my own mistakes. Since I have returned, I would consider myself honoured to have come to know you better. But I did not expect that you could reciprocate…”

That word again, and it makes her lips twitch towards a smile for a moment. “I will confess I am not sure what words to put to my own feelings,” she says, gentling her words. Erdan does not look hurt though, nor surprised, and she wonders whether that is a matter of being elven, or of being dead, or simply some groundedness that he has that she cannot think she could assign to many people. “But as much as I enjoy your company I know that – that I would ask more, if you would give it.”

“I would have thought it impertinent to offer,” says Erdan.

“I would not have been _offended_ ,” she replies. “But it is only more recently that I have been able to approach such thoughts.” Her thumb runs across the back of his knuckles; they feel so delicate, for hands that can wield such power. But then again, it is a different power than one needs to control a sword, magical or otherwise.

Erdan swallows. “And what else are those thoughts?”

There is an easy enough place for that to begin. “That I would like to kiss you again.”

For a reply, Erdan simply does so, smooth and confident and _eager_ in a way that catches her off-guard. She wonders if he has been waiting, unwilling to speak before the risk of rejection or anger or whatever else he might have feared from her, and the thought of being _wanted_ is tremulous and fresh and familiar both at once. Lydia takes hold of Erdan’s arm as she kisses him back, shifting closer to him until their legs press together and she feels _close_. Not just some physical closeness, though that as well is exciting and raw, but something less tangible that seems to bleed into the air between them as the kisses blur together. She feels the brush of his tongue, catches her breath, replies in heated kind as his other hand comes to rest on her hip.

“I forget sometimes,” he breathes, so close to her lips that she can interrupt him with another kiss, “that you are not always armoured.”

“There are different armours,” she replies, but knows deep inside that she does not want any of them, not here, not now. Instead she plunges herself into the kiss, into the touch, and allows herself the honesty of _wanting_ once again.

It was not that she _intended_ to bed Erdan. She barely had plans for her words, let alone anything else, but step by step and with eager agreement each time she finds herself falling into him. Kisses deepening, hands on her skin, until she takes him by the hand and leads him through to the room which she calls her own. Not needing sleep, she keeps it largely for the privacy of having a door outside which there are not guards, where she can meditate and try to find some peace.

She is not in the least surprised when both she and Erdan pause at the door and look at Bubbles expectantly. The cat responds by climbing into one of Lydia’s chairs, wrapping piercing eyes behind the fronds of her tail.

“She will be fine,” says Erdan, as Lydia hesitates a moment longer. She has never had to consider a pet. Never had to even consider a child, Hardwon still so young that he could not even crawl. Any of Elias’s crew knew better than to enter the captain’s cabin when the door was closed – for any number of reasons, and even Lydia sometimes stood outside when her husband needed time by himself – and Red, the only one brave or foolish enough to break the rule, was adept at dodging items flung in his direction.

Still, Erdan gently closes the door, then kisses her again, and the sound of the latch is a declaration of intent in itself. Each piece of clothing brings a hesitation, a glance, one or both nodding at a question unspoken or whispered. Erdan’s hands are gentle on her skin, and to her own surprise Lydia does not find herself swept up in urgency. There are a dozen reasons why, she supposes, but it does not feel like a loss as she lets herself savour the time, Erdan’s touch, his lips against her throat, his hands tracing the curve of her hip.

Erdan is slight; not skinny, but slim in that elvish way and Lydia, used to wearing plate armour, could likely have pinned him down if she so wished. There are fewer scars on his body than there are on hers, but he does not react to any of them, not to the faint lines that form shadows across her throat, not to the twisted knot just beneath her ribs, not to the curving marks that still mark the base of her belly, the only signs of her son that she had carried for so many long years. She cannot help but note his, a mark or two that she recognises as from fire, a couple of cold silvery lines she knows to be from necromantic magic. Most likely nothing strange among battle-willing wizards, who for all that they did not wield weapons often faced them all the same. Lydia’s fingers trace across them as she runs her hands down Erdan’s body, revelling in the way that his skin feels warm to her touch, in how she can feel the movements of his muscles underneath.

And, well, she cannot claim great experience in the matter, but it does not escape her that Erdan is _skilled_ with his touch. He asks in whispers what she would prefer him do, and when she does not know will more than willingly demonstrate. His fingers and his tongue are deft, precise, no muted fumbling or hesitation as he traces her. She sees stars; she had not even _thought_ so far, not that they might find themselves in her bed, not what it would feel like to lose her thoughts in a way that she had all but forgotten about.

Lydia forgets to breathe, as her body rushes hot and sparking-clear and trembling. With eyes closed, she falls through the waves, until she gasps back to herself and the rematerializing world, to Erdan’s body lying next to hers and his eyes burning deep brown into hers. His lips part in a question, and perhaps she should wait to hear it but instead she kisses him again, shivering to taste herself on his tongue and still feeling weightless.

“What do _you_ want?” she whispers against his lips, trailing her hand down his chest. The hairlessness of his skin is strange as well, warm and smooth and doing nothing to hide those few faint scars beneath.

Erdan’s breath catches as Lydia’s thumb runs over his hip, just brushing the sensitive skin of his uppermost thigh. With her other hand she tangles fingers in his hair, aware of his hardness against her leg.

“I would…” he laughs, softly. “It would be unfair of me to reply indecisively. But to see you above me, with your hair loose…”

She had not been sure what his reply might be, but it is the _earnestness_ that tightens in her chest. Biting into his lip as she kisses him, she rolls Erdan onto his back and straddles his thighs, his hands catching at her hips to help steady her. She reaches up to loose her hair, then hesitates as she feels the dust of the day still caught in it.

“It may need one of your cantrips,” she says, sitting up.

The look in Erdan’s eyes is both new and familiar as well, as he runs his fingers across the braid that hangs down over her left shoulder and she feels the prickling of magic. The first time he had offered had been stilted, in the wake of a fight which had seen her helmet knocked away and her hair all but matted with blood; subsequent ones had seemed more casual. She had not considered it intimate until she saw his expression now, soft and intent as the dust and sweat of the day were swept from her.

“May I…” his fingers plucked at the tie, and she nodded. He undid it carefully, set it on the table beside her bed, and ran his hand through the braid once, again, until her hair hung free around them and burnished red by the fire. Erdan ran his hand down her cheek, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth, and said something quiet in Elvish that she didn’t have the heart to admit she did not understand.

Had she missed these looks, like the one that Erdan gave her now, for all these months? The unconscious smile at the corner of his mouth, the way he looked as if entranced with every second of her? Or had he been better at concealing such thoughts, veiling them in admiration as they grew?

Then again, she was not even sure when it first was that she would have chosen his company above all others’, let alone when something more had bloomed within her. She had been more concerned with the battlefield, and had barely known when it was that she could begin to call people friends.

It stirs some new feeling in her, the sense of not just being desired but… desirable. And it is strange to realise the difference, but she had been aware of Luna’s shameless flirting and that had never quite managed to feel as though it were something she had earned or deserved. It had been… foreign. Distant. But somehow as Erdan looks up at her, she believes the look in his eyes in some deeper way, and another of the armours inside her cracks.

Her hand threatens to tremble as she guides him, and she has the feeling that he notices but is too much a gentleman to say. Lydia keeps kissing him until she has a crick in her neck and must pull back, and even then he keeps his hand in her hair as she moves against him. It is… fascinating, to watch his expression, the way that he watches her as if drinking her in. She realises with a catch of her breath that his words, so specific, must have been something he had thought of before, something he had _fantasised_ , and the thought tears a sound from her lips.

Time turns meaningless around them, and she likes it, the feeling that, at least for a moment, the weight of the future of a realm is not upon her. True, she has chosen that weight, would rather face that than the expectations and rulings of others, but the moment of pure freedom is not unwelcome. Erdan climaxes with her name on his lips, and she kisses it breathlessly from his tongue and murmurs wordlessly into the dark curls of his hair.

In the afterglow, they kiss lazily, hands gently ranging without the determined energy of before. She rests her forehead to Erdan’s, and runs one finger along his jaw, feeling warm and somehow not at all exposed despite the bareness of her skin. The urge to look over her shoulder, to keep watch not just for herself but on behalf of everyone around her, has abated at least for a while.

“You are welcome to stay a while,” says Lydia. Erdan’s hair springs back in delightful ways when she runs her fingers through it, and she is not sure it will become boring any time soon to watch it. “I will need to meditate a while, and I have more records to write tonight, but… I have some time spare still.” Her smile quirks. “An advantage of undeath, I suppose.”

“I would be honoured to remain a while longer,” he replies. “But if you need some time alone, I understand. People are wonderful, but… tiring, sometimes.”

“I had noticed you are happier as an advisor than an ambassador.”

Erdan pulls a slight face, and it makes his ears twitch. She does not point it out. He has plenty of skill in dealing with people and their complaints, in handling crowds, but it was not difficult to see that he did not thrive on it the way that some others did. It had taken some of the tiredness from his eyes and some of the tension from his shoulders to shift his responsibilities. “I would not waste what talents I have, but while there are others who are at their best as mouthpieces for your rule…”

“People do their best work when they are happy,” says Lydia. “The same as I would not see Moonshine or Elias forced onto a throne that they do not want, I would not see people in roles they dislike. At least;” she shrugs, or tries to at least, the movement awkward while lying down; “not for any longer than necessary, and not without their agreement. You did vital work, in those early days.”

His smile turns slightly sadder, and Lydia lets the topic slip away. For most, the tumultuous events of that time are becoming easier to speak of, but Erdan carries his regrets heavier than most. He still cannot bring himself to speak to Quiksus, when the dragon comes through on one of his visits, though at least Lucanus made the matter moot by being the first to speak.

“And I am glad that you are happier where you are now,” she adds.

It is only once she has spoken the words that she realises the innuendo, and as she glances down at them both, legs still entwined, laughter bubbles within her. Erdan frowns for a moment, then looks down as well and it must dawn as he coughs laughter into his hand and his cheeks and ears both flush again.

Lydia clears her throat. “I would say that I do not mean it in that way, but I suppose that I mean it in both.”

“Well, then in both ways I am grateful,” says Erdan. His hand comes to rest just at the curve of her waist, and that too feels more intimate than she would have expected from such a small, specific thing. “Lydia…” his voice was softer, rougher, than usual. “I am sorry if it was clear that I did not like Luna behaving in that way towards you. I felt she was… too bold.”

“I am not always against bold,” she replies. Her Elias had been bold, and brash, and vivid with so much life that he had breathed life into her as well. But she understands his words; she is different now than she was then, Lord of Shadowfell and not some nameless soldier within the Chosen cult. “But her boldness was not… well-directed.”

Erdan smiles. “Though perhaps I should thank her for it, if it was what drove you to speak.”

She cannot help the question that forms on her lips, that tightens in her chest. Her voice drops to a whisper. “How long were you waiting for me to realise?” she says.

He pauses, smile fading but not quite leaving his eyes. She lets her hand fall still, resting against his neck, and wonders faintly at how comfortable it all feels. “’Waiting’,” says Erdan finally, words slow again, “would imply that I had some expectation of you. I did not.”

It doesn’t answer her question, but it is more than enough to still her curiosity. She brushes her lips across his cheek, too faint to quite be called a kiss this time.

For a while, they lie in silence. Comfortable. She wonders how things can change so fast after moving so slowly, but then again, that has perhaps been the story of her life. Her fingers trace aimless patterns on the side of Erdan’s neck, at least until he squirms as she hits a ticklish spot.

“Where you get your wisdom, I do not know,” she says. “But I am glad of it.”

Erdan’s smile grows a little sadder. “By the making of mistakes,” he says, “and being blessed enough to survive them. Well… most of them, at least.”

At least they have that in common. “We can only see mistakes in hindsight,” says Lydia. “Until then… they are just actions.”

He pushes her hair back behind her ear, and smiles, and part of her wonders how she made herself wait so long to feel like this again.

It is surprisingly easy to negotiate their… time together. Not as easy to put a name to what it is. Some days, they barely see each other; others, they will find hours to spend together talking about the past and the future and anything that comes to mind. More rarely, they find themselves in bed again, but it is always with breathless enthusiasm, with eagerly searching hands.

There are advantages, as she had said, to not needing to sleep.

They do not actively make a secret of it, and had spent so much time together even before that likely most do not even notice the change. Captain Toegold gives Lydia thoughtful looks sometimes, but seems to decide that unless there is something he needs to take account of for security reasons, it is none of his concern. She appreciates his lack of prying.

The first time that they really run into any complication is on one unremarkable occasion, mercifully just as they are beginning to disrobe within the privacy of Lydia’s room, when she feels the ghostly touch of a scrying spell at the back of her mind. Though the feel of scrying is less common now that they are able to Send messages to and from the mortal plane, she knows that Moonshine or Elias still sometimes check in when they do not have a cleric or wizard at hand, and has never delayed opening up to the scry for more than a few seconds.

She pulls sharply away from Erdan, to his look of confusing, and puts a hand to the dagger on her hip. “Scrying spell,” she says, simply.

There is little mistaking the situation, not with Erdan’s robes half-removed, her gambeson gone and shirt untucked. Erdan looks around them, then without a wasted word grabs the rest of his robes and casts Invisibility on himself, slipping out of sight. Lydia hastily tucks her shirt back in as she opens up to the Scrying smile, giving a rueful smile to the air.

“My apologies,” she says to whoever is watching. Moonshine is the one with the power to cast the spell, but she knows that there are ways and means to give others the power for a while. “I was just changing. I hope that everything is well, even if I’m guessing young Beverly and Erlin are off somewhere else lately. I can seek out Erdan and have him Send you a message so you can reply.” Erdan, from what she can judge, is standing extraordinarily still and doing his best not to make a sound. “I’ll speak to you soon.”

She stays, smiling at the air, until she feels the shadowy tendrils of the spell slip away again, then turns to roughly where Erdan had been when she looked away. There is a beat, then she nods encouragement and he fades back into view again, blushing to the tips of his ears and clutching his outer robes to his chest.

She manages to meet his eyes for only a moment before bursting out laughing. It is too much, too absurd after the simplicity of the changes they have made for themselves, and it feels good to laugh at herself. After a moment, Erdan simply chuckles.

“I must commend your quick thinking,” says Lydia finally, though only once her cheeks and ribs both sit wonderfully close to the point of aching. “I was about to just run next door.”

Erdan coughs, then puts his pince-nez back on. “I have not hidden like that in a _very_ long time,” he admits. Another giggle threatens to burst from her, and she has to admit that only giggle can really be the right word. “I… believe I was still at university, and Lucanus was trying to find me over some homework I had said I would do and then lost track of.”

She shakes her head. “You are a wonder.”

“It was around that time that I truly found started finding people too tiring to balance scholarship, friendships and… any other relationships. I decided that friendships were more important to me.”

“And having met Lucanus? You earned yourself a good friend in doing so.”

“Now, uh,” he set about redressing himself, the mood of the room utterly changed. “You said something about Sending a message?”

“Ah, yes. Usually they have Erlin contact me, so…”

She grabs parchment and scrawls out a message, double-checking the number of words, and Erdan passes it swiftly along. The reply that comes back makes him smile and sigh, and she begins already to relax.

“They apologise for worrying you,” he says, “but Erlin is distracting Beverly, they said. They are planning Beverly’s seventeenth birthday and would like your permission as Lord of Shadowfell for his father to visit for a few hours. Not on the birthday itself, a couple of days before, in case emotions are mixed.”

“Can I… authorise that? After the deals and passings on of his soul?”

He shrugs. “The Dusk Mother probably has the ultimate authority, but they are the ones who enabled her to gain the Divine Heart. And you _are_ Lord of Shadowfell. I do not imagine that a few hours will bring anyone wishing vengeance.”

“Then I will talk to him about it, and see if he thinks it is a good idea.” It had shown, after all, how well Captain Toegold knew his son. “But I would certainly not wish to stand in the way of it.”

She does not compare Erdan to her Elias, not while she is in his presence. It would be unfair to them both. But she cannot help it at other times, of course, when she considers what has become of her and whether love can be slow and creeping and undramatic, can exist without sundering and remaking her world as it did before.

Erdan is introverted where Elias thrived on being around and among people, book-educated where Elias was all instinct and experience. Makes her feel stronger in who she already is, rather than making her scared and excited all at once about who she is becoming. It is so different, but _she_ is so different, and she has had so little experience of normality that all she can look for is whether she is happy.

And to that, at least, she can say that she is.

It is with more heat in her cheeks that she catches herself comparing them in… other ways. Sometimes she does catch herself missing the intensity of what she had with Elias, emotionally and physically; as exhausting as it could be to love him so much, it had invigorated her all the same. And, well, with how little the Chosen had educated their members it had been all thrilling discovery as their relationship had progressed, everything new and reckless and breathtaking. She had been a virgin, of course, mercifully knowing anything at all only due to the helpful words of a girl a few years older than her whom Lydia never asked how _she_ knew what she did. Elias had never _asked_ , and she had never _said_ , but she was Chosen, of course he would have known.

There had never been half-measures with them. When they had flown, it had been fearlessly, and when they had loved, it had been recklessly, and even from when they had first fallen into bed it had been desperately and ferociously, as if they believed any time might be their last. Exciting, yes, and all that she had wanted at the time, but nothing like the measured and attentive way that Erdan touches her, that she is learning as she learns his body in return.

But perhaps that is for the best. She is a new person, born again in blood and pain and growing into something new. Though she carries the name she made with Elias, it is not _his_ name. There were none before them, and more and more she is coming to realise that it will not linger after, that it is the name Surefoot that will continue onwards. That her son, too, has made his name and not been given it, and that even if it is difficult after all these years she must learn to think of him as Hardwon.

A babe in arms, become a godkiller. A vow-breaking paladin, become Lord of Shadowfell. Yes, they have both changed. Finally, she is able to better come to terms with it.

When her son and Moonshine Planeshift in to collect Captain Toegold, the visit is short and nervous, nobody quite sure how things will turn out. Lydia still steals time to hug Hardwon tightly, as she always does, and Moonshine reassures them that they will be back for longer before too long, and that others who are visiting for Beverly’s birthday might be with them.

But as she says it, she gives Lydia a long look, which for all her best intentions Lydia cannot interpret. At least, until Moonshine raises an eyebrow and looks _pointedly_ at Erdan, and honestly it is subtle for Moonshine which Lydia can only conclude is because Hardwon does _not_ know.

There is no time for her to think on it before the group is gone again, and only a couple of Shadowguard who wished to see Captain Toegold off remain. She waves them away to their tasks, and idly pets Bubbles where the cat has decided to sit on the great bone throne. So long as a skeleton must have given her an affinity for it, or something.

Once they are alone, she turns promptly to Erdan. “Moonshine is aware – I do not know how. Hardwon,” she uses his name quite deliberately still, but it is coming easier, “does not.”

Erdan looks only faintly troubled. “You wish to tell him,” he says. Neutral, which is nice for its lack of judgement but does not exactly help her know what his advice would be. “It would be opportune to do so while they are here, I suppose.”

Impulsively, she embraces him, and he stands startled for a moment before wrapping his arms around her in return.

It is about the first time, since that first night she had broached the subject of them, that she has felt nervous. She is not sure what to make of it. Does she truly think that Hardwon will be upset, angry? Or is it that some deep part of her remembers the horrors that the Chosen wrought upon her, upon them all, for the breaking of her vows?

Perhaps she is in love again. Only love – of Elias, for Hardwon – has ever made her feel this uncertain before.

“Do you… want to talk?” says Erdan finally, as her silence drags on.

Lydia gathers herself and disentangles from him. It will not do to idle away the hours before they return, not when there is always work to be done in the running of a realm. Especially one that is still growing, like hers. “No,” she says. “But… thank you. Perhaps later, though, once… they have come and gone again.” A sigh escapes her. “I’m so sorry. You should have had a say in this.”

“It would have been shortsighted of me not to think it might eventually be raised,” Erdan says. It is clear from his tone that he did not realise that Lydia had _not_ thought far enough ahead to consider this turn of events, but she is not offended. It was, after all, shortsighted. But she barely even caught up with her thoughts when she had acted upon them, not even thought through that first night, let alone beyond. Somehow it is easier to have plans for a realm, as Lord Stormborn, than it is to have them for herself.

If she is a little kinder, she supposes that she knows already what she wants Shadowfell to look like at the end of its journey. She does not know how she might want herself to someday look.

“Do you want to be there to talk to him?” she asks, because it is polite, although she has a strong suspicion she already knows the answer.

True enough, Erdan looks uncomfortable. “I feel that perhaps it would be better for him to hear it from you. My time with their party was… complex.”

A complexity which has scarred Erdan more than it has scarred them, by what Lydia has seen, but she understands and nods. “I understand. Well, I am supposed to be meeting with some of the Bastards of None this afternoon. I will need to keep my wits about me for them.”

“They are certainly good at that.”

“Sorry, Hardwon,” says Moonshine almost as soon as they appear, looping her arm through Lydia’s as if there is nothing at all strange about greeting the Lord of Shadowfell in such a way. “I need to borrow Mama Hardwon for a moment.”

Hardwon looks bemused, but not upset, as Moonshine turns smartly towards the nearest door she can find. Lydia manages to steer them to an actual room instead of a corridor and makes very sure that the door is closed behind them. This is going to be awkward enough without the risk of being overheard. The sound of Captain Toegold talking to Beverly, Erlin and Hardwon about changes to the castle vanishes to nothing beyond the thick wooden door.

“I ain’t gonna beat around the bush,” says Moonshine. “You an’ I had a successful little eye-chat earlier, so I know you know what I’m making to be talking about.”

“Though I might ask how _you_ came to be aware,” Lydia says, because if nothing else _that_ question has been nagging at her all day.

“Oh, sure.” Moonshine holds up her right hand and wiggles her fingers, showing off a glittering gold band. “Peepaw Luke decided he had a whole lot of birthdays and Crickmases to be making up for. Sent me a darn ring of spell storage this Crickmas. Cast a Scry in, hand it to Hardwon, he can call you all private.”

“My son can now cast Scrying spells,” says Lydia, in vague astonishment. She wonders vaguely how Hardwon’s reading is going.

“Uh-huh. But of course, he ain’t got the most delicate touch, so you’ll notice when he’s a-calling. Me, though… I get the feeling you ain’t always caught when I’m casting my Scrying spells.” Her freckles dance as she gives Lydia another of those knowing looks which… well, Lydia wants to say they feel strange coming from a girl so young, but Moonshine is probably only about the same age as Lydia was when she died. Or perhaps a little older, not that it would mean much to an elf.

Lydia isn’t actually as embarrassed as she might have expected to be. If anything, she feels guilty that a Scrying spell meant for her and to which she had agreed had violated Erdan’s privacy so. “Well, I thank you for clearly not telling Hardwon. I will admit I am still not quite sure how to broach the topic with him, but…”

Moonshine shook her head. “Down at the Crick we don’t worry too much about keeping it from folks, you know? So I can’t say I’ve ever had quite that conversation. But I can say that since the end of the world and all, Hardwon got himself a visit to Kord’s Hall of the Valiant, just for a drop-in if you catch my drift.”

Her throat seems to tighten for a moment. “He spoke to Elias.”

“Got himself some closure, yes. Came back happier, for what it’s worth, and told me an’ Bev that if it ever came up we was free to tell you ‘bout it. Course, he didn’t say it had to be you bought it up.” Moonshine gives a sly smile. Lydia can see why so many would underestimate her, but even from the beginning – those hazy revenant days – she had felt that there was something remarkable there. It was nice to be proved right sometimes. “When we first came lookin’ for you, he wanted real bad to get you back with his daddy, but he understands now things ain’t always as simple as the stories he told himself in the dwarphanage. And hey, at least we know Erdan, so it ain’t gonna be some stranger getting him all protective of his mama.”

That, at least, makes Lydia chuckle. “Well, of that I’m glad, because I imagine the protection of one of the vanquishers of Thiala would make for quite the intimidation factor.”

“You know he still threatens to sic you on folks that razz him too hard, right?”

She may have missed so many years of Hardwon’s life, but sometimes Lydia feels that she snags glimpses of the child behind the man. From the reactions of Moonshine and Beverly, she rather suspects that she prompts them from him. “I can imagine.”

“All right then!” Moonshine flings the door back open again, and everyone inside the room looks round at once. “Well, I bought some leftover jambalaya, you’d best be gathering folks round ‘fore Pawpaw tries to get his share.”

Thank whatever gods were listening, once again, for Hardwon’s friends. Lydia shakes her head, but sets about finding messengers that she can sent throughout the castle for anyone who might have the appetite and corporeal body both for Moonshine’s cooking.

Hardwon looks more surprised at her using his name than he does when she indicates, in careful words, that she and Erdan are… involved. She does not mention Elias, does not dwell on the past, and Hardwon’s eyes are nothing but shining blue and open above his faint smile.

“Mama,” he says finally, possibly when she lets him get a word in edgeways. “I just want you happy.”

It still feels so _strange_ , to hear people say things like that to her. Of course, Elias and Red and Gunther had wanted her happy, but all four of them had sometimes been petty and selfish and had argued with each other and pitted their happinesses against each other as if there were some finite supply. She is almost ready to flounder with the knowledge that so many people care about her so selflessly.

That sort of selfless love that the Chosen had once raved about, which in the wake of her own fall from their ranks she had believed was a myth of its own. Even as she had taken up her sword again to hold off Galad and his men, to buy Red the time he needed to spirit her son away, there had been some angry selfish part of her that had wanted to punish the Chosen who remained, that had wanted to carve her anger into their bodies and her name into their souls. She had been breaking already that night.

But only now, on the far side of breaking and being remade, did she see that it existed after all. That she could see her son in another realm to be happy, that he could call her Lord of Shadowfell instead of seeing her at peace in the way he had once assumed.

“Thank you,” he whispers into her hair, as he reaches in to embrace her. “For calling me Hardwon. I didn’t wanna say because I know it’s the name you gave me, but… I’ve never really looked like an Elias.”

One final twinge of guilt, then she lets it go, moves forwards. One more piece of the future that they can build together.

The power in him reassures her that she will not need to save him again. That he has faced a god, and won, and not been corrupted by power in the aftermath. There is nothing she can protect him from that he cannot protect himself from twice over.

 _“You saved the child,”_ he had said, the words like ice in her burning, blistering mind. _“You saved the child, ma.”_

She holds him, and lets tears roll down her face, and finally lets her heart feel whole again.


End file.
